Read good books, a little at a time.

“Read good books, a little at a time. Don’t gobble them up. Don’t read through it to say “I’ve read it.” Slowly read books. Sometimes, read the same book two or three times over again – trying to put into practice what it says.”  - Fr. Thomas Hopko

I’m a big re-reader. I like to re-read books three, four, five times and more. Some books I “plow through,” but usually I try to enjoy, learn, and understand what I’m reading. After Pascha I began re-reading Dr. Zhivago and can’t believe how much more I enjoyed it and got out of it during that 2nd reading. The poetry, symbolism, and concepts were more readily seen the second time around. 

As I have so famously said time and again, I read Dicken’s Great Expectations in 9th Grade and hated it, but then read it for fun after I finished seminary and thought it was one of the greatest books of all time. What had changed was not the book, but me and the attitude in which I read it.

Fr. John